WWI listees birthdays - poll closed!

As requested, The poll has now closed. Thanks for playing.

Thanks to the 62 people who took part in this little bit of nonsense. The final figures look like this:-

Jan - 6 births = 10%
Feb - 4 births = 6%
Mar - 5 births = 8%
Apr - 6 births = 10%
May - 3 births = 5%
Jun - 9 births = 15%
Jul - 4 births = 6%
Aug - 5 births = 8%
Sep - 6 births = 10%
Oct - 5 births = 8%
Nov - 3 births = 5%
Dec - 6 births = 10%.

Competition Kits coming along

Have the DR.1 painted and futured now.

I made my own decals and will print them out once I can get to Walmart for a new printer cartridge.

Since I'll be printing on clear decal paper, I will need ot mask and paint the white outlines for the national insignia.

Saturday was propeller day

I got all my 1/72 scale propellers together from unfinished kits and got them all painted.

I put on a coat of light tan acrylic, followed by some future.

Then I got out my artists oils and made a pallet out of wax paper. I added white, yellow ochre and burnt umber and got some nice tones.

I brushed on some of a lighter shade then after an hour t dry a bit, lightly "dry-brushed" some of the darker tones, to give a nice laminated wood appearance.

It won't be so accurate of the Fokkers, which had 7 layers of laminate, but I can't paint that accurately, and anyway the wood look suits me.

I'll leave them for a week to cure then put gloss coat on them.

Sprayed The Nieuports

On advice of the list, I made up a silver dope colour for the Nieuports. Mostly silver with about 40% white added. Both colours were regular 97c craft store acryllics. I thinned it for airbrushing with future and gave 2 coats to all surfaces. It looks good, close up. Almost the same shade as the Tamiya primer but with a little metallic tingle. When dry I gave them all a thin brushing with future.


I masked and painted the fuselage of the Dr.1. The edge of the mask is clear, but That may sort itself all out once everything else is done.

Contest Kits

Interiors are now finished on all kits. Painted, assembled, weathered. Seat belts were made form taking a screen capture of Eduard's photo-etch frets for French and German belts, rescaling them to 1/72 and printing on photo paper. I then cut them out and glued them to the seats. Look fine, but you can't really see my "wickerring" effect of drawing dots on the seat with a sharpie.

I drilled rigging holes, mostly with a small drill bit in my pin vise, but for some, and especially the "long" holes in the Nieuports' tailplane, I used a heated wire to melt through. I like the raised "grommet" effect that gives.

Today I sprayed CDL on the upper surfaces of the two Dr.1 wings that will be streaked. I covered those with future as well.



Also I sprayed sky blue on the undersurfaces and futured that as well. The upper wing got a coating top and bottom of a slightly darker blue, as per DSA's drawings, as did the struts and wheel covers. This is quite subtle, and can't be seen all that well from the pics. I'm also not so happy with the "colour" that the CDL comes out in the pics, either. Paint was simple craft store acrylics, thinned with Future, and sprayed. Each surface got 2 coats. The CDL was Misterkit German CDL, straight out of the bottle.




All surfaces were Futured as well and I will leave them to dry for about 48hrs. I can work on the Nieuports in the mean time.

Contest Work - Early Days

Got my kits; Roden Dr.1 and 2 Eduard Ni.17s.

I'm going to mark the Dr.1 in the controversial, but exciting markings of #586/17. I'll be masking the candy stripes and making my own decals for the "LO" on the fuselage. The national insignia will come from the kit.




For the Ni17s, one will be an Italian one (don't know which one yet), and one will be Guyenmeyer's #1531. Not particularly exciting, apart from the Italian paint job, but a good chance to try subtle weathering.

I'll choose one of the Nieuports as the contest entry later.


I've sprayed them with primer, and painted and weathered the insides. Ready to close them up now.

Masking Test.

Still waiting for kits to arrive. UPS usually come in the afternoon, so I decided to do a wee test, based on a recent thread on the WW1 mailing list.

I wanted to test how I like using either Tamiya making tape, Frisket film and general Scotch low tack painters tape.

I have prepared a spare wing. Tamiya primer, 2 coats of sky blue, 1 coat of Future. All coats left to dry thoroughly before the test started.

I stuck on a complete mask from Frisket on 1 side, and 2 strips each of Tamiya, Scotch and Frisket on the other.

I then sprayed a coat of red, thinned with Future. I waited for it to dry then sprayed a second coat. I then waited 30 minutes till the paint was dry(ish) then removed the masks. Here are the results.

As you can see, the whole wing mask suffered from a lot of bleed. I may not have put enough pressure on the frisket.

Each if the strips did OK. Again a little bleed on the frisket, but with careful pressure that might be solved. No real difference between Tamiya and Scotch, apart from the price! All 3 leaving a noticable edge!